With a little help from my friends
by Laurus Nobilis
Summary: Remus sees his friends as Animagi for the first time.


_Disclaimer:_ All characters are copyright J. K. Rowling. The title is Lennon/McCartney.

**With A Little Help From My Friends**

Remus woke up in the hospital wing feeling worse than ever. But that was how he felt every time, he reasoned. His transformations seemed to become increasingly violent and painful. He suddenly realized that his thoughts were just about to reach self-pity and got immediately angry with himself for it. It was quite annoying- the wolf had been there for over ten years, but Remus still hadn't managed to get completely used to it. _Guess I never will._

Trying to sit up, he felt a piercing pain in his right arm that made him quickly lie down again. Madam Pomfrey appeared on the door as soon as she heard him move. 

"Be quiet," she said, "that's a broken arm you've got there. Among other things, of course. But most of them I've taken care of by now." 

She gave him a nice cup of herbal tea to ease the pain. Before leaving, the nurse made it very clear that Remus still needed a lot of rest. 

"Don't even dream of getting up for at least two days. Now try to sleep, my boy. I'll give you some Dreamless Sleep Potion if you need it." 

Remus didn't need any potion, though, for he was so tired that he fell asleep as soon as he found himself alone. He didn't wake up until many hours later. The first thing he heard were two familiar voices arguing not very far from him. 

"Please, Madam, just for five minutes…" 

"Definitely not, Mr. Potter! If you want to help your friend as much as you claim to, the best you can do is go away and let him sleep." Madam Pomfrey had been immediately told when James and his friends found out about Remus's secret, and though she treated them very sternly when her patient's resting time was at stake, Remus knew that she was inwardly very glad that they cared so much about him. 

"But Madam…" 

"I'm awake!" Remus called, turning to see them. "Please, Madam, let him in." 

Madam Pomfrey shook her head with a disapproving look, but she finally allowed James to stay for a while. He sat down beside the bed. 

"How are you feeling, Moony?" 

"Have been better. And I'll have to stay here until Friday." He sighed in frustration. "It's going to be really boring." 

"Sorry to hear that. But it'll all be much better soon, won't it?" James with a knowing wink. Remus couldn't help but smile at that. 

"Hope so." _The Animagus spell is so complicated, though…Wonder when they'll get it right. _

The boys quickly changed the subject, as it really wasn't a nice one, and chatted on until Madam Pomfrey came to drag James away. 

Remus wasn't as bored as he thought he would during the following days, because his friends visited him several times. He spent the rest of the time mostly sleeping. That proved to be a wise decision. By Friday afternoon Remus was feeling quite well again, so the nurse let him return to the Gryffindor common room. 

He met James as soon as he left the hospital wing; his friend had obviously been looking for him. 

"Moony, you're up! That's just perfect. C'mon, I need to show you something." 

Remus hadn't seen him so excited since he had won the Quidditch Cup the year before. _This must be big_. He followed James through half of Hogwarts until they reached an empty classroom- the one where Sirius prepared his "improved Dungbombs", Remus noticed. 

James told him to enter the room first, which Remus did with a certain apprehension. The Marauders didn't hesitate to play pranks on each other when there weren't any Slytherins available. Before he could react, a huge black dog jumped on him throwing him to the floor. It had such a familiar scent… 

"Sirius?" 

The dog moved away from him, wagging its tail merrily. Remus was standing up to get a closer look when something softly pushed him from behind. He turned around to face an elegant stag. 

"James… It's amazing," he whispered in awe. "But where's Peter?" 

He felt something pull the edge of his robes- a rat. Remus noticed it was the first time he saw a rat looking offended. 

"Sorry, Peter. Didn't see you," he apologized. Suddenly, his friends became humans with three small "pops". 

"Surprise!" Sirius exclaimed. "Didn't expect that yet, eh?" 

"Sirius, you're ruining it! You skipped the official presentation!" Peter complained. James stepped in before they really ruined it with their fighting and bent in an elegant bow. 

"Mr. Moony, we're proud to present you Messrs. Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs." 

"But you said you wouldn't make it till Easter…" Remus said, still startled. 

"We hurried up," answered Sirius, winking at him. Then Remus smiled as broadly as he hadn't in years. _I can't believe I almost didn't let them do this…_

* * * 

"You're insane. All of you." Remus didn't care if his friends had expected him to be happy with their idea; he had a point to make. "D'you think it's easy to become Animagi? It can take years, you know, and it's difficult, and dangerous, and… and… _illegal_! You can't do it, I won't let you." 

"I _told_ them we shouldn't keep it secret," Peter said. "But James is right, you see, they'd ask us why we want to do it… and we can't say that." 

"We really can do this, Remus," James assured. "We know it's difficult and all that, but we're willing to work as much as necessary. It will probably take a lot of time, you're right about that- but I think it'll be worth the effort." 

"I don't know…" Remus whispered. "What if something goes wrong?" 

Sirius rolled his eyes impatiently. "I knew we couldn't ask you! Honestly, Moony, you have a talent for making everything complicated." 

"But we had to ask him!" Peter exclaimed. "What if he said 'no' _after_ we had done all that work?" 

"The point is," James said matter-of-factly, ignoring the other two, "nothing will go wrong. We won't do anything risky until we really get the hang of it, I promise. You'll just have to be patient." 

"Yeah, Remus," Sirius said, now smiling, "you don't think we'd ruin it, do you? We really mean to help you. And James's idea really _is_ great, you have to admit that." 

Remus remained silent for a while, lost in thought. He finally looked up to his friends. "But you don't know if it'll work," he said softly. "I could still be dangerous to you." 

James shook his head. "No, you won't. Some people have done this already, McGonagall told us that- we pretended we were just asking about homework." 

Remus looked confused. "Who would want to do something like this? Besides you, I mean." 

His friends exchanged meaningful looks. 

"Er… you don't want to know," Peter said quickly. _Hunters.__ Great._ Remus took a deep breath, pushing his hair off his eyes. 

"Are you sure you can manage it?" he asked. 

"We wouldn't have told you if we weren't sure of that," James said. 

"And you promise you'll be careful- and you won't get caught?" 

"Promise!" the three boys exclaimed together. 

"Then it's fine with me," Remus said with a soft smile. 

* * * 

It was late at night, but the Marauders were still awake, discussing their success with the Animagus spell. 

"Sorry if I hurt you, Moony," Sirius said. "I still have to work on controlling my strength." 

"You're fast," Remus replied. "That's going to be useful." 

"Remus… how fast is the wolf?" Peter asked with more than a bit of apprehension. 

"Very fast. But that'll be no problem with Padfoot here." 

"And Prongs!" James added. "But don't worry, Peter, we're not trying this with Moony yet. We promised we wouldn't do it until we were really sure, remember?" 

"And you better keep that promise," Remus said sternly. "I can very well wait another month." 

Sirius changed the topic, probably noticing the conversation was about to get slightly depressing. 

"So, what's going to be our next big plan?" 

"Something that includes me, I hope," Remus said with a quiet smile. 

"Something less dangerous," Peter muttered. 

"We'll find the Slytherin common room!" James exclaimed. "It's the only one missing." 

"But that won't really take much work," Sirius observed. "I bet not even the ghosts know Hogwarts as well as we do." 

"That's it!" Remus exclaimed suddenly. "We'll make a map of Hogwarts! We'll put every room on it, every single corner- " 

"And all the secret passages!" James's eyes were bright with excitement. "That's the best idea ever, Moony." 

"But it shouldn't show just the school- the building, I mean," Sirius added. "Let's put the grounds too, and the tunnels to Hogsmeade we found last year." 

"And it must show how to open the passages, just in case we forget…" Peter said timidly. 

"Better yet," Remus said, talking in whispers as he always did when he had a great idea, "it must show the _people_ who are at school. So we'll always know where Filch and the teachers are, and we'll never get caught!" 

"We'll have to do some research to find out how to do that," James said, "but it'll be worth the job." 

"But what if someone finds it?" asked Peter. "We'd be dead for sure!" 

"Oh, we just have to put a password on it," explained James. "And if you try to open the map without it-" 

"It explodes!" Sirius laughed. "Actually, we could let Snape find it, and-" 

James rolled his eyes at his friend. "We're not going to do all this work just to let it explode on Snape. What I was going to say was that the map could do something really annoying, like… say, insult who tries to open it." 

This seemed to fit Sirius rather well. "Mr. Padfoot is pleased to remind Mr. Snape that he is a revolting slime ball," he said in a mock solemn tone. 

"Snape is _not_ going to find the map, Sirius," Remus sighed. _Though if he ever does, I wish I'd be there to see that!_

"I say we talk about this tomorrow," Peter yawned. 

"Yes, we better go to sleep," James said. "I need to rest for tomorrow's Quidditch match." 

As he turned off the light, Remus couldn't help smiling to himself. It was amazing how different he felt from just two days ago. _Everything will be different from now on._


End file.
